The haunting of the Blue man, or Blåmannen at the cobalt mine, Modum Blaafarveværk in Norway has been told for ages now. What truly lies inside the darkness of the mines?

Blaafarveværket was Norway’s largest mine and also Norway’s largest industrial enterprise in the first half of the 19th century and is the largest and best-preserved mining museum in Europe. Could it be that it’s also one of the most haunted ones?

Read More: Check out all ghost stories from Norway

Far inside the old cobalt mines of Blaafarveværket in Modum, a figure has been reported for nearly two centuries. The tunnels once rang with the strikes of hammers and the clatter of ore carts as workers extracted the cobalt-rich stone used to make the famous deep blue pigment. But beneath the sweat and industry lurked a story every miner knew: the warning spirit called Blåmannen.

Roger Pihl.

A Shadow in Uniform Haunting the Deep Mines

Blåmannen (The Blue Man) was said to appear wearing a miner’s uniform, his lamp burning with an uncanny, bluish glow. He never spoke. He simply showed himself before the disaster. Miners claimed he emerged from the darker shafts just moments before a collapse, his presence a silent signal to get out while there was still time. Those who saw him whispered that he looked more resigned than frightening, as if burdened with a duty he could not escape.

According to Kai Hunstadbråten’s article, “The Blue Man in the Rock at Modum“, the Blue Man is also said to have been called “Hans med knappene” (Hans with the buttons), due to the Blue Man’s uniform. Hunstadbråten also claims that the miners called one of the open pits at Nordgruvene “The Blue Man’s Mine”.

The Miner’s Demon: The element cobalt got its name from a mythical rock demon, a kind of gnome-like creature, who terrorized miners in German mines. German miners traveled to Norway in the 15th and 17th centuries to work in Norwegian mines. Agricala described, among other things, a rock demon from the silver mines of Annaberg in present-day Germany, with “wild eyes and a long neck like a horse.” This demon is said to have killed 12 miners simply by breathing on them. The German mining demons probably joined the crossing, but had difficulty gaining a foothold among the Norwegian workers. Norway had its own traditions of underground mines, plots and pits.

Another miner who claimed to have met the Blue Man was Hans Simen Røtter. He also worked in the cobalt mines in the 19th century. One story goes: 

“Once when Hans Simen Røtter was burning a log at Norsgruva […] a blue man came to him […] and asked him to go out, because the mine was not safe. But Røtter now wanted to set the fire first, and would not go. Then the blue man came back one or two more times and almost threatened him to go, and no sooner had he come out than the log collapsed.”

The Christmas Collapse of 1854

The most chilling encounter came in December 1854. Seven workers entered a narrow tunnel, unaware that the supports had grown dangerously unstable. Deep inside, Blåmannen appeared before them, striding toward them with urgency. Only when he pointed toward the exit and shoved the lead worker backward did they grasp the danger. The men fled in a panic, but the last of them was buried under the collapse. The sole survivor was the one who had been pushed away first.

It was December 13th and Christmas was coming. Miner Ole Torstensen noticed that a fox was following him on his way to the mines. This omen could mean a sudden death, but what was he to do? The boss was not going to give him the day off just because of superstition. Legend has it that several workers saw the Blue Man that day, and that birds pecking ominously at the windows of the sugar house where the workers slept. Ole Bøenstøa was also going to work that day, and perhaps he and Ole Torstensen mentioned the omens to each other as they set off down the mine shaft to work. It was so narrow that the eight workers had to walk in a single file.

When they had gone a little way in, a shadowy man suddenly came towards them. He was dressed in a blue miner’s uniform and held an oil lamp in his hand. The blue man looked at them and pointed towards the exit, which if he wanted them to turn around. But the miners didn’t stop. The blue man disappeared, but it wasn’t long before he reappeared and wanted them out. This time they couldn’t be persuaded either.

The miners were now restless. For the third and final time, the Blue Man appeared in the darkness. This time he went straight for the first worker in line and tried to push him out of the mine. They realized that this was a warning they had to heed, but by then it was too late. The mine began to collapse around them.

People outside heard the terrifying roar. The oldest miners quickly realized what had happened. A landslide! When the masses of rock had settled, they could hear the trapped workers’ desperate cries for help. They managed to pull three men alive from the landslide, but one of them died afterwards. Five men were found dead. One of them was Ole Torstensen. Ole Bøenstøa came out of the incident unharmed, even though the two were standing right next to each other when the landslide came. Was it the Blue Man who saved Bøenstøa, while the encounter with the fox made Torstensen’s fateful day?

From that day on, Blåmannen was no longer seen as a guardian spirit. He became a grim omen, a ghost tied to death and ruin whether he wished it or not.

Where Did Blåmannen Come From?

After the Napoleonic Wars, the enterprise was taken over by the private owners Benjamin Wegner and Baron Benecke with Wegner as director, and their ownership period from 1822–1848 is known as the works’ heyday, and possible when the rumours about Blåmannen emerged. 

One of the oldest written sources though, sets the emergence of Blåmannen to the late 1840s when a man retold a story in a newspaper called Buskeruds Blad from 1903, only signed O:

Mother often told me about an incident that happened at one of the Blaafarveværket’s pits at Modum in the late 1840s, when a man by the name of Røtter, who worked in the so-called Nordpit, was alerted in a miraculous way, so he avoided being crushed by the collapsing pit.

At night he was busy in one of tunnels burning “Stull”. The fire blazed bright and cast its shine through the dark Tunnels. Røtter stands with his back to the fire and warms himself, when a young man comes up to him from one of the side passages of the pits and says: “You must get out quickly”.

Røtter was amazed at the young man’s appearance, when he knew that there was not a human being besides himself in the pit that night.

He replied: “No, I cannot do that.” The figure disappears, but comes back after a few minutes and says to him: “Yes, now you must go”. Røtter then replied again: “No, I can’t; I have to take care of the fire and can’t leave my post”.

The figure disappears, but immediately comes back, goes right up to him, follows him to the ladder and says: “Now get up”.

He ran up the ladder as fast as he could, and then went into a nearby chair room and sat down on a bench. But he had hardly sat down before he heard a huge bang, and the ground shook. Right after there is another bang, more violent than the first, the door bursts open, and he thought the mine was collapsing.

Now it was quiet. He began to wonder what had happened, but did not dare to go out; he wanted to wait until morning. Then he came down to my parents and told them what had happened that night. When people came to the mine in the morning, the whole tunnel where he had been working had collapsed and were the banging sounds he had been hearing.

Who was the mysterious young man who made him leave the pit, so that his life was saved at the last moment? In the mines, as mentioned before, there was no one but himself. The figure was a handsome, young man, wearing blue clothes with a cut, which was not used around there.

When I read some pieces in your magazine about “Visions and Omens” some time ago, I thought of writing down what Mother has told me so many times.

Was it a Warning?

– O.

The Warning Still Stands

Even now, visitors to Blaafarveværket sometimes speak of a dim blue light flickering deep within the closed tunnels or the sound of footsteps pacing in shafts that have been empty for generations. Guides tell the old legend quietly, and with a gravity that suggests they believe every word.

One thing remains constant in the stories. If you ever glimpse Blåmannen standing in the dark with his lamp raised, do not hesitate.

Run.

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References:

Buskeruds Blad, fredag 25. desember 1903

Halloween spesial – Blaafarveværket

DØDENS BUDBRINGER i koboltgruvene på Modum – Issuu

Blaafarveværket – Wikipedia